The Two Must-Eat Dishes in Taiwan

There’s much more to snacking in the Taiwan capital than oyster omelets and stinky tofu, by JENNIFER CHEN

Taipei’s oyster omelets, stinky tofu andji pai—a chicken schnitzel on steroids—have entered the pantheon of Asia’s great street foods. But for those who findji paigimmicky, prefer their oysters on the half-shell, and feel that there are foods that should smell like sweaty socks and those that shouldn’t, there are other roadside snacks to please the palate. Below, two dishes not to miss.

Cong You Bing Outside of Taiwan and China, cong you bing, or scallion pancakes, are usually hockey puck–hard disks of greasy fried dough. True cong you bing should be lightly seared and crispy outside, while inside are many light and greaseless layers. And it’s never, ever dunked in sauce—at least not among purists. In Taipei, there are several versions of cong you bing. Zua bing, a more pliable cousin, are fried with egg for breakfast or used as tortilla-like wrappings. But most scallion pancakes fall under the two basic categories, the chewier Chinese version, often sold by weight, and its lighter Taiwanese cousin, which you buy by the slice.

Gua BaoEvery great cuisine has its version of meat wrapped in some form of carbohydrates. In Taiwan, it’s the gua bao—slow-braised pork belly and pickled mustard greens stuffed inside a pliant steamed bun and topped with chopped cilantro and finely ground peanuts. (The name translates as “cut bun”; in Taiwanese, they’re more evocatively called ho ka ti, or “tiger bites pig.”) Traditionally eaten at the end of the year, they make a handy, fast meal. At the celebrated